


If At First You Don't Succeed

by icosahedonist (teljhin)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-17 23:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11278761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teljhin/pseuds/icosahedonist
Summary: When he got down to it, Zhenya knew Sid wasn't as weird as everyone thought. Of course, that was before Zhenya learned exactly what made Sid a little weird in the first place.





	If At First You Don't Succeed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [faith_girl222 (faithgirl)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithgirl/gifts).



> Once again, my unending thanks goes to S for being an all-star beta. I could not have done this without you.

If Zhenya thought about it (and he did sometimes, but not too often, because he wasn't obsessed or anything thank you very much), Sid got a lot of unnecessary flak about his routines. Because if one thought about it long enough, one realized that all hockey players had their own routines—and if a player tried to claim that they didn't, they were a liar and a fool. Zhenya was no different: he had to have his skates sharpened in a particular order, and he had to go out on the ice last (which everyone knew about because it was a routine entwined around Sid's own superstition). Every player had something, and if Sid _did_ have more routines and superstitions than that of the average hockey player, it was probably only known because everyone wanted to know everything about him, down to his old, falling apart jockstrap.

Zhenya could understand the jock, disgusting as it was, and the other routines too. It made good chirping material, but none of that was what made Sid odd. Because he really wasn't for the most part, and that's why Zhenya thought it unfortunate that he got so much attention for his superstitions. Really, those weren't a big deal. But the things that made Sid a little bit weird, well… it wasn't the so-called usual suspects, if you asked Zhenya. Being shy and uncertain around fans, that was normal. Having a silly laugh, that couldn't be helped. Living with your boss and his family for years, well, rent had been free (plus it wasn't like Zhenya had rushed out to get his own place when he was living with the Gonchars).

Sid's real oddities were little things, things that probably added up to nothing; they were hard to quantify, and maybe only Zhenya noticed anything out of place—or maybe Zhenya was the only one who thought about the things that actually made Sid weird, and maybe that made _Zhenya_ weird. (Or slightly obsessed, but probably not, Zhenya reasoned with himself.)

Sid had a tendency to momentarily zone out at random times. It didn't happen during games because nothing short of armageddon would distract Sid from hockey, but anywhere else was fair game. Team outings, five o'clock PB&J sandwich time, media events—Zhenya even once saw Sid zone out (after the fact, of course, when Zhenya rewatched it on his computer) during the Cup parade; there's photographic evidence of Sid sleeping with the damn thing, so for him to drift off in the midst of a celebration designed around Lord Stanley is downright bizarre. And when Sid eventually came back to reality he always looked disgruntled, like he couldn't believe he slipped away there, or maybe like his inner world had done something to displease him. The times that Zhenya said something tended to get brushed off. "Just lost focus there," Sid would say. As if Sid wasn't the most focused person Zhenya had ever known.

Sid also had a tendency to show up randomly, and this was harder for Zhenya to explain. A teammate popping up out of the blue, while random, isn't strange. Zhenya himself has taken to going over to his teammates' houses unexpectedly, most often just to hang out but he's gone over to cheer them up or coax them out to enjoy Pittsburgh's nightlife. So, not strange. But when Sid does it, it's not typically for any of those reasons.

For example: one time during breakfast at the hotel they were staying at, Sid had walked in, gone up to where Dumo was sitting, and moved the empty chair next to him to a different table. And then left without a word, ignoring all the various questions called to him. When later confronted about it on the bus, Sid had shrugged and not really given any sort of answer, and no amount of cajoling would get him to say anything meaningful. The team chalked it up to another weird Sid thing, and came up with increasingly absurd, superstition-violating reasons for why the chair had had to go. At the time Zhenya had played along, but if it were something superstition-related, Sid would have surely said so.

Another time, at a press scrum following a game where Sid somehow finished up before Zhenya, Zhenya noticed Sid hanging back behind the various reporters, as if waiting for something. When Zhenya finished, sure enough, Sid snagged the arm of one of them and began chatting him up. Being that he was going through the motions of undressing and all his after-game routines, Zhenya only listened to them with half an ear. None of it was out of the ordinary, except when Sid asked after the reporter's father. The reporter had said something, Zhenya didn't remember what, and Sid advised him to call his father. Had been kind of insistent about it too. Zhenya didn't know what the reporter said in response since Zhenya had at that point gone off to shower, but the exchange had definitely pinged his "Sid is being weird" sense.

There was also the time Zhenya had been fixing himself some spaghetti one night when the doorbell rang. He figured it was probably a teammate, so when he opened the door to see Sid standing on his stoop he wasn't surprised. What _did_ surprise him was the way Sid all but barged in with hardly a hello said; even more surprising was the way that, after absently asking Zhenya if he was hungry, Sid had flung a large bag of McDonald's onto his counter then went over to the stove and turned it off and moved the pot of pasta to another burner.

Now, Zhenya was willing to put up with any number of Sid's quirks, but there were certain lines that didn't get crossed. Like coming into a person's home uninvited and disrupting their dinner by taking said dinner away and attempting to replace it with fast food. And maybe this would have been perfectly fine (Zhenya loved McDonald’s, after all) if Sid hadn’t commandeered dinner without so much as a by your leave. So Zhenya did one of the things he did best: he got angry.

Sid didn’t even blink when Zhenya yelled and gestured and aggressively poked the McDonald’s bag. But he did block Zhenya’s attempts to restart the pasta, because even if by then the spaghetti was a lost cause, it was the principle of the matter that counted, and Zhenya couldn’t have told you how righteous the whole affair had made him. Had it not been for the fact that Sid finally took Zhenya by the shoulders and quite earnestly apologized—big hazel eyes staring up at him, voice gentle but firm, sincere—they might’ve come to blows.

Perhaps Zhenya was soft; maybe he should have demanded an explanation. Yet in the face of Sid’s heartfelt expression, what else could he have done?

So Zhenya’s anger popped and left him like air from a deflated balloon. After Sid was gone—having apologized again but still offering no explanation—Zhenya drained and threw away the ruined noodles. When he opened the bag, he felt a strange pang in his chest: Sid had picked all his favorites in just the right amount. He ate standing by the counter, food slightly cool, and eventually went to bed more confused about Sid than ever.

So: Sid did weird things every once in awhile. They had no rhyme or reason, and Sid always shrugged off explaining them. Zhenya tried telling Seryozha about it, all the odd instances he could remember, but even he just laughed and pointed out that Sid was weird.

Yes, of course. Sid was weird. How could Zhenya forget that shining gem of logic.

Zhenya kept those things to himself after that, deciding that it was better to say nothing. Everyone already knew what they thought they did about Sid, so what difference would it make if Zhenya tried to convince them otherwise? Especially when, if one thought about it, Zhenya’s detailed breakdown of what did or did not constitute weirdness in Sidney Crosby started to look like Zhenya had spent a little too much time thinking about it to be called a neutral party anymore.

It was one thing to begrudgingly admit to himself that he was no longer a neutral party. Quite another to do so aloud where fiendish, unforgiving teammates could chirp him.

Zhenya's plan to stay quiet was a good one. Solid. Without reproach.

It was too bad that the universe's plans tended to supersede his own.

It happened to be the case that particular day that Zhenya was for the most part alone at PPG, which was maybe the universe's way of trying to make the most of a strange situation. Were it anyone else they might have had some serious issues with what was about to go down, but because Zhenya had meditated as he had on Sid's weirder moments, he was kind of prepared.

Zhenya was rooting though the team refrigerator when he heard the soft "oh" at the doorway. He straightened up and looked over to see Sid standing there, a hesitant expression on his face. For a moment neither of them said anything until finally Sid said, shoulders hunched and hands tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie, "I wasn't expecting you here."

Zhenya raised his eyebrows. "Who you expect, Sid? Maybe I go, you call who you're expect and say come to rink instead." Though to be fair Zhenya hadn't really expected to be here today either, but he'd felt the urge to get in a bit of skating and had gotten hungry enough for a snack. That didn't explain Sid, however.

"No, it's…" Sid waved one hand vaguely. "It's fine, just… Anyway. You're not going to eat the leftover meatloaf sandwich, are you?" He came up to the fridge and started rummaging through it until he found the sandwich in question. Wrapped neatly in cellophane, it looked pretty appetizing to Zhenya—until Sid unceremoniously chucked it in the trash.

"What—"

"Trust me," Sid said on a sigh, "you didn't want that. Have the, uh." He inspected the shelves with a critical eye. "Maybe the fruit salad? I bet you could also get a turkey sandwich out of what's left here. Or you could scramble some eggs, those are fine—"

Zhenya couldn't help laughing, because this was another of those rare weird moments of Sid's. A little bit familiar too. "Why you're always steal my food? I have sandwich maybe and you throw away, make pasta and you bring me McDonald's. Something I don't know, Sid?" He poked him in the arm and got a small chuckle in return.

"Maybe," Sid replied with an easy smile, cutting a sly glance toward Zhenya. He shut the fridge door, and Zhenya forgot all about food as they contented themselves with enjoying each other's company in silence. Zhenya wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, the pair of them staring at one another with twin besotted looks. Or at least Zhenya knew that’s how he must look, his emotions always so present on his face. He thought maybe Sid’s slightly goofy expression meant the same. And possibly they would have stared until the rest of the team stumbled in on them, hours or days later. But the universe had its plan, and so Sid broke the peace first.

Sid's brow furrowed then; he cocked his head to the side as if listening for something. Zhenya heard nothing, or maybe someone coming, but nothing out of the ordinary. He started to ask but quieted when Sid held up his hand, squinting like that would improve his hearing. Then with wide eyes he blurted out, "I gotta go," turned, and booked it out of the lounge like he was late for Game 7.

"Mystified" was as close as Zhenya could get to describing his reaction. For a second he just watched Sid go, unsure of what, if anything, he should do. He decided to follow after him—try to get to the bottom of why Sid suddenly felt the need to hightail it away to wherever. But when Zhenya stepped into the hallway he heard footsteps come to a stop. He turned to see who it was: Sid, goggling at Zhenya with a pair of skates in his hands.

This made no sense for a few reasons.

Sid held skates in his hands. Possibly he had picked those up somewhere, having rushed off to retrieve them, but Zhenya felt that seemed unlikely. Because:

Sid was wearing different clothes. Maybe he could have shed his hoodie, put pants on over his shorts, but again, not in the amount of time between Zhenya seeing him. And most importantly:

Sid had left in the opposite direction from where he was standing now, and there was no way for him to go around, even at his fastest, and arrive back to where he was.

Somehow Sid had achieved the impossible, and Zhenya could do nothing but gawk at him like an oaf.

"Uhh…," Sid began, which was taking the words right out of Zhenya's mouth. He paused; he looked like he was regrouping when he got that telltale expression on his face that said he'd checked out mentally. Of all the times for him to zone out, it was probably fitting somehow for it to happen now when Zhenya's whole worldview had been shaken to the core.

Zhenya grasped Sid by the shoulders and jostled him gently. The fog cleared, and Sid paled as he looked up at Zhenya and breathed out a quiet but heartfelt "oh fuck".

" _Sid_." Zhenya didn't know what else to say. He hoped that his expression conveyed his urgent need for an explanation. It must have, because Sid kind of slumped a little, a look of resignation passing over him before it turned to the sort of determined grimace he sported when they were down by two with less than a minute left on the clock.

"Okay. I can explain. It's uh. Let's sit down, okay?" He led them to the couch in the lounge and set his skates on the floor. Zhenya sat down beside him, still reeling from… whatever he had just witnessed but ready to accept any number of possibilities. Possibilities he couldn't even think to name, they were so far-fetched.

Sid drew in a deep breath as he turned to face Zhenya. Exhaled. Zhenya waited. The moment lingered and finally Sid said, "I can time travel."

And. That was a beginning, certainly, but Zhenya had rather hoped there'd be more. Sid seemed to be waiting for Zhenya to just nod, accept it as another one of those quirky things Sid did, like it was a superstition he'd only now revealed but expected to be met with a modicum of friendly harassment.

Finally Zhenya exploded. "How can you tell me something like 'I can time travel' and not say anything else? Do you know what a feat that is? Or has disrupting the time-space continuum messed up your sense of the extraordinary? Fuck, Sid, this is… this is…."

Sid just frowned. "Time traveling doesn't mean I suddenly know Russian, G."

Zhenya pinched the bridge of his nose. Language was a _farce_. "Know this, Sid, but I'm very confuse. You say time travel and I'm not understand, how can you do…?"

At least Sid had the decency to look embarrassed. He shrugged awkwardly. "It's hard to explain, I don't really get it myself, but, um. It's like this: my, uh, self in the future, he… wait, hold on. You mentioned the pasta thing, you remember?"

Impatiently Zhenya said, "Yes, I'm remember, what—"

"That might make things easier. Or make things more confusing."

" _Sid_."

"Okay, okay. You were making pasta that night when I came over, right?" Sid paused. "You were going to burn yourself, Geno, pretty badly. My other self, the Sid who came back to that moment in his past, he knew it was going to happen because for him it had already happened. Do you follow me so far?" He was looking at Zhenya intently, and not without a small amount of hope that he was being understood. Zhenya nodded his head, even though he wasn't entirely sure if he followed, but he didn't want the explanation to get muddied even more.

"I can't pick when it happens, but every time I, or I guess my future self, has time traveled, it's always been to change some little thing that's going to become something big. So in your case, he stopped you from making pasta because it was going to lead to you getting hurt."

Zhenya scrubbed his hands over his face. To think he'd been so pissed that Sid had interrupted his meal; he knew logically he'd had no way of knowing at the time, but he couldn't help feeling like he'd done Sid an injustice.

"Oh, and the sandwich from a few minutes ago? Bones was going to eat that eventually and get really bad food poisoning. He—we?—didn't expect you to be here, so that kind of threw things off, and that's why he ran off and… well." Sid shrugged again.

Zhenya of course was no expert but one thing niggled at him that made no sense within the confines of Sid's explanation. "How you know what happen? If you and other Sid are both… both _here_ , in this time, but not in same place, then how…?"

Shaking his head Sid said, "When the other Sid disappears, I somehow just… know what he did. I can't explain it; it doesn't make a lot of sense."

Zhenya fell back against the couch with a snort. "Nothing make sense, Sid, this all crazy." He watched as Sid stiffened beside him, so he quickly added, "I'm not say you crazy, I know you're not lie to me. Just mean this—"

Was _weird_ , was what he was going to say. He let the unexpected laughter bubble up out of him, let himself laugh until Sid's flustered expression got the best of him, and then laughed a bit more.

He knew it. He _knew it_! He'd been right all along! Sid wasn't weird; he was funny, and awkward, and a fierce friend, and so much more, so many wonderful, beloved things. He could _travel through time_. Which was a weird thing that Sid could _do_ but it didn't make him who he _was_ , which was….

Zhenya cut himself off by flinging his arms around a suddenly startled Sid. A second passed before Sid cautiously returned the hug, asking in the sort of careful tone meant for people in delicate emotional states, "Are you okay?"

'Okay' didn't really describe it. It was a peculiar sense of vindication, he thought, at knowing that all the time he'd spent getting to know Sid, trying to understand him, and yes, eventually falling for him as he learned the sort of person Sid was—it wasn't wasted effort. And if it was a small and inconsequential thing to know that Sid wasn't actually weird, then Zhenya didn't care. _He_ knew it, because he understood who Sid really was now.

This was why he answered Sid with a kiss.

Sid pushed Zhenya away, wide-eyed. "Um?"

Right, Sid wasn't privy to all that internal monologuing Zhenya'd just had. "Sid, I'm—I'm watch you for so long, I know you, I know what you do. You good friend, have good heart, always... always make time for fan or kid wants autograph, make time for dumb rookie—" Here Sid snorted but Zhenya kept going. "—Everyone say you weird but I know you not, now I know you time travel, you _best_ Sid—"

Sid didn't look any less confused. Zhenya huffed, then said, "I'm want to kiss you for long time so now I do. Okay?" Realizing that while he knew plenty about Sid he didn't know if Sid actually wanted to kiss him back, he asked tentatively, "Is kiss okay?"

Sid glanced down and back up again. Hesitantly he replied, "It just seems like a strange way to react to learning one of your friends can time travel—"

"I'm not kiss all time travel friend," Zhenya interrupted pointedly.

Sid rolled his eyes. "Oh, well then. But really, you uh. You want this?" He gazed at Zhenya steadily, bottom lip tucked between his teeth the only indication that he was anything but calm (because Zhenya _knew_ Sid).

So Zhenya answered with another kiss, and another, and another. And later he's sure he said yes but now, in the present, he answered the only way he could, and Sid responded just as Zhenya hoped—and knew—he would.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://icosahedonist.tumblr.com/). :)


End file.
